The industrial field of this disclosure relates to cutting devices and cutting machines and specifically to such devices and machines applicable to severing materials that are compressible or fibrous.
Expanded fibrous materials are used in manufacturing and construction industries for insulating or sound dampening. These materials are not easily cut with standard techniques and equipment due to the inherent difficulty of simultaneously compressing and cutting dense and or resilient expanded materials. These materials are generally cut with a hand held knife guided by a straight-edge. The knife compresses the material against a supporting surface and the knife contacts this surface during the cutting operation. This causes the knife blade to become dull so that it must be sharpened or replaced frequently. Another problem is that manual cutting does not produce consistently clean cuts and is subject to inaccuracy and variations.